


White Picket Fences

by Dandybear



Category: The Wicked + The Divine
Genre: Angst and Humor, Canon Compliant, F/F, F/M, Gratuitous FOB, I wanted to write a happy reunion fic but this came out instead, Laura Wilson's Not-O-Fucking-Kay, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-10
Updated: 2015-07-10
Packaged: 2018-04-08 15:18:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4310208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dandybear/pseuds/Dandybear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Laura pictures a flat with a dog, maybe some tacky furniture, and the one person she'd like to come home to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	White Picket Fences

**Author's Note:**

> I've been having writers block. Rather, I haven't been satisfied with anything I've written. I really wanted to write about Lucifer and Persephone being reunited in the underworld. I wanted to do something other than Laura angst, but such is the creative process.
> 
> Hopefully getting this out will help get the other ideas flowing.
> 
> It's mentioned in issue 2 that Lord Byron was a previous incarnation of Lucifer. This led me to suspect that Percy Shelley = Persephone. And then I started shipping romantic poets.
> 
> *stares off into the distance*

**March 1**

 

My head’s pounding so hard I feel like it’s gonna explode. Kablooey, all over the sidewalk. Scrambled Laura. Bon appetit, crows.

 

I shouldn’t even joke. The thought of exploded head reminds me of…

 

Well, you know, the reason why I’m here. Standing in front of her family home with hands shaking too hard to knock. Luckily, they have a bell.

 

I press it then stand there, hands shoved into my jacket. I hear the footsteps approaching and this is my last chance to run.

 

Her mother opens the door. Mrs. Rigby looks like her daughter, rather, I guess Luci looked like her mum. She’s a more swollen version with an English snub nose who looks like she just got hit with thirty years. She looks like she’s dying. I wonder if I look the same.

 

“Um, hi, Mrs. Rigby. You don’t know me personally, but I--”

 

She holds the door open and steps aside, “I know who you are, Girl. Are you enjoying the fame my daughter gave you?”

 

I open my mouth, feeling the tears come. Just breathe and count to ten. Think about something else. Puppies. Don’t break down on the doorstep.

 

Her expression changes from the angry one, to that vulnerable look Luci would get every time she asked me about the gods.

 

“I’m sorry. I know you actually cared. Jesus, you’re all just children.”

 

I follow her inside. She offers to take my coat, I keep it on. It’s become something of a safety blanket. My coat and my little box of smokes.

 

“Would you like a cuppa tea?” She says, voice flat.

 

“Uhm, yes please.”

 

I’m unsure of what to do. Where I was going with this. She leads me to the kitchen. The kitchen window with an ashtray filled with Malboros. The room itself smells of smoke and kipper. It should make me wrinkle my nose, but there’s a comfort to it.

 

Luci’s dad comes in from the garden. His hair is thinning and he’s got her nose. He takes one look at me and sighs.

 

“We thought you’d probably come around.”

 

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. I can leave.”

 

I move to get up and he puts a hand on my shoulder. The older generation need to learn more about consent, but I allow it.

 

“You have a right to be here. You were there for Eleanor when no one else was. We thought this god thing was just a phase. I guess, we hoped it was. Didn’t want to support it, didn’t stop her either.”

 

He scrunches his face up and runs a hand over it.

 

“Now, I wish I did something. Said something. Spoke to her more…” He breaks.

 

I don’t know what to do. I just grab the hand on my shoulder. There’s Jesus on a cross above the window. I want to laugh at the irony, I can’t. Laughing seems so alien.

 

The kettle whistles. Through the window I see the swing. A set for one. Only child, don’t sound so surprised.

 

“Your name is Laura, right?”

 

I nod, not really trusting my throat to make the right noises just now.

 

“A few of her old girlfriends have been by, looking for memorabilia for the internet, I suspect,” Mrs. Rigby says, “Shooed the lot of them off.”

 

Mr. Rigby sits heavily in one of the sagging kitchen chairs, his head in his hands.

 

Other girlfriends? Maybe I’ve misjudged them. The cross could mean anything. Hell, this neighbourhood could have an infestation of vampires.

 

“I’m not… we weren’t. I don’t want to exploit her death. I never wanted that.” I say.

 

Mrs. Rigby talks before she can catch herself, “Was she scared at the end?”

 

I want to lie. A perfect lie is going to come out of my mouth. ‘No, she was surprised if anything, there was no pain. She died with a smile.’

 

Instead, I say, “She was terrified. She said, ‘Don’t’. But, it sounded like ‘please’.”

 

Mrs. Rigby nods hard and turns around to pour the tea.

 

“I guess… I just wanted to see her as Eleanor. She told me a little bit about it. I just keep thinking about what would’ve happened if it happened, you know. The Recurrence. We went to the same shops, same shows. Probably would have met anyway. If we had met earlier we would have had more time.”

 

It’s not a thought I often voice out loud. I stare at the peeling table as I say this. A mug of steaming tea is sloshed in front of me and a cloth to mop up the milky puddle.

 

“Would you like to see her room?” Mrs. Rigby says.

 

I stand too fast, knocking my knee and the tea with a wince.

 

“Can I?”

 

The third step creaks and in my head I can see Luci vaulting over it to sneak out, or avoiding it on her way back in, because the sun’s crawling over the horizon and it’s a school night.

 

Pictures of her line the stairs. Her mother doesn’t bother playing tour guide. I just slow down to look. Her hair was long when she was little and it looks wrong. She cuts it in what looks like fifth grade and beams in her school photo. Holy shit, there’s one of her and Amaterasu as kids.

 

“The Greenways have been more in touch with Hazel since Eleanor… since Eleanor.” Mrs. Rigby says.

 

Her bedroom is at the top of the stairs. Fucking nerd has an ‘Abbey Road’ sign and a Slytherin poster on her door. The broken parts of me that were mending feel like they’re going to shatter again. This is a teenager’s room.

 

Mrs. Rigby lets me open the door. I take a deep breath. There’s still a little bit of her in here, despite the dust. I make a beeline for her bed. There are posters of the Pantheon on her wall, just like mine. The poster of Inanna is biggest because of course it is.

 

A jumper is being handed to me. Grey with purple stripes. I look up at Mrs. Rigby. She’s looking at me with those clear eyes.

 

“Here. You des--you’re about the same size.”

 

My throat feels too heavy for my neck. I just nod with a slack jaw and grab the jumper with clawed hands.

 

If she judges me for burying my face in it, then she can just fuck off. I’m sniffing and getting fat tears on the heavy cotton.

 

“I watched the documentary,” Mrs. Rigby says, “It’s the last bit of my little girl there, and every time we’re looking at her, she’s looking at you. Or pointedly not looking at you.”

 

I hold the jumper to my chest and look at her, waiting for her to continue.

 

“A parent always hopes to see their child look at someone like that. Still, it would’ve been nice to meet under different circumstances.”

 

I can feel my face trying to smile, looking her in the eyes proper.

 

“Like an awkward dinner where we dance around topics like religion and politics, only to get into a screaming row about The Beatles?”

 

That actually gets a laugh. I feel like that’s a win for today.

 

“She told you about that, did she?”

 

“She did.”

 

She sits on the bed next to me. I move towards the pillow to keep the gap between us.

 

“Eleanor looked mortified, it hadn’t come up before. So, when this girl she’s brought home starts beaking off on how The Beatles are overrated. Then, in the silence she notices our names are Maxwell, Rita, and Eleanor Rigby.”

 

“Wow.” Is all I can say.

 

Luci wasn’t kidding about her parents being fans. They had the names to match.

 

“When we first met, she quoted ‘I Saw Her Standing There’ at me.”

 

She blinks at me, then shakes her head.

 

“Sorry. You’re telling me that my Eleanor, also know as The Devil, quoted one of the cutesy earlier Beatles song at you?”

 

I feel my shoulders migrating towards my ears in a deep shrug.

 

“She did it to be creepy.”

 

“That sounds like her. You’re _just seventeen_ then?”

 

I nod, and it’s eerie, because there are so many pieces of her here. I want to gather them up and glue them to the shards that I have left. Maybe I can fill this hole back up with little moments we never had.

 

“ _I’ll never dance with another._ ” I say.

 

She bites her knuckle and gets up to leave.

 

“Come down when you’re ready. You can take a few things if you’d like.”

 

“I’ll ask you if I do. Don’t wanna take anything important.”

 

She closes the door on her way out and the first thing I do is bury my head in the pillow like a creep. The scent’s gone stale, but there’s a bit that ashy smell, a little bit of hair oils. I’m desperate, I’m disgusting.

 

We never even dated. Just a flirtation and promise of shared divinity.

 

It’s not just that though. The little touches. That instant comfort around each other. She was open to me. Told me her deepest secrets.

 

> “I have wings,” She said, blowing out a cloud of smoke, “Big, fluffy white ones.”
> 
>  
> 
> “Bullshit, let me see.” I said.
> 
>  
> 
> She held up her fingercuffs. I raised a brow, unimpressed and waiting for the miracle.
> 
>  
> 
> “I miss when you were more credulous.” She sighed.
> 
>  
> 
> The back of her jacket began to twitch. It wiggled and I saw her face shift in concentration. There, edging along the hem of her jacket, were white feathers.
> 
>  
> 
> “Holy fuck. Why haven’t you shown them off?”
> 
>  
> 
> “Because they look gay.” She scoffed.
> 
>  
> 
> “Well, that’s never stopped you before.”
> 
>  
> 
> “Point, Laura.”
> 
>  
> 
> I fed another carton of smokes through the hand slot. She took them from me with a gentle touch.
> 
>  

Come on, Laura, don’t make this obsession weirder than it is. I am digging through her bedside draw. Poems, angry poems, sad poems. I paint the letters onto my brain. Gods, she had such a way with words. I feel a laugh bubbling up inside me.

 

Under the pages of her journal I see it, a ring, plastic and fat on top.

 

Is that a vibrator?

 

Laura. No.

 

I’m considering it. I mean, I hope her parents wouldn’t miss it. I can hide it along with my own unmentionable personal affects and never look Inanna in the eye again. He’ll know. Him with his sex sense.

 

The vibrator finds its way into my pocket along with two poems and a bracelet.

 

I step into her closet and inhale. Not a white suit to be seen. It looks a lot like my own closet, actually, minuses dresses and crop tops. A lot of white collared shirts and tight jeans. I run my fingers along them, fantasizing about dragging on of those collars down for a sloppy kiss.

 

Everything hurts.

 

I show Rita the pages and the bangle on my way out. She gets a funny kind of smile.

 

“It was my mother’s,” She says about the bangle, “I wore it on my wedding.”

 

Immediately, I give it back to her. She grabs my arm and pushes it up my wrist.

 

“I wanted her to wear it on her wedding day. You can have it. I won’t ever wear it again.”

 

Of all the awkward things. I stand there, hovering by the door, unsure if we should shake hands or exchange numbers.

 

She hugs me without asking. It feels nice. A good ‘Mom hug’. Out on the step I click my fingers and light a cigarette.

 

I make it two blocks before throwing up.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**April 12**

At Ragnarok I’m dodging kids in white suits and fans clamoring for my things. I have one of the poems with me. It’s wrinkled and the ink’s smudged from how many times I’ve read it. I’ve been debating reading it during my panel.

 

Would that be gross and exploitative? I don’t think so. I just want to get her words out. I miss her and I want to channel her voice for a little longer. The gods all treat me like I’m her widow anyway.

 

Also fucking weird.

 

I don’t a chance anyway because Brunhilde takes up the whole panel dishing on Woden. I can see the irritated looks of the front row until Woden strides in and starts a fight. It does take away our question period. The two lovers of Inanna shrug and head off backstage. I didn’t get their names. It doesn’t really matter, I just don’t want to come off like a prick at the after party.

 

I’ll probably be a prick at the after party regardless.

 

Speaking of pricks, Cassandra pulls me aside. I get the feeling she doesn’t have many friends. I’m scared she’s starting to see me filling that role.

 

It’s all so fucked up and I’m outside for a fag when Baphomet shows his pasty face in daylight for the first time in what’s probably a decade.

 

I really hope I don’t fancy him. That would be the worst thing. He reminds me of Luci a bit. All the underworld gods have this kind of… manic dreariness about them. The depression hiding behind a quick wit.

 

At least, I think that’s part of what The Morrigan is doing behind all of the Shakespeare speak.

 

Baphomet opens the door to… karaoke. At this point nothing could surprise me. Next door will be sex dolls or maybe snakes. I’m about to fuck off when he asks me.

 

“What was she like?”

 

All of those comebacks, the words she wrote that I memorized, how I described her to my therapist-- they all get stuck in my throat.

 

“I need to go.” I say.

 

I’m breathing hard and fast and Baphomet is talking soothingly. He’s a prick, but he still cares. Still wants to soothe, even if it is with discordant yelling and whiskey.

 

I search for the ‘no’ I’m going to say. It isn’t there.

 

The Morrigan’s doing a wail-y cover of ‘All That I’ve Got’ and aren’t we “none more emo” now. Baphomet’s shoving me towards the stage. A few people are chanting my name. This is what I wanted.

Morrigan offers me a hand up and I take it. The song better be fucking here. I scroll fast to keep a sense of mystery. There it is, thank fuck. Alright, Baphomet. You wanna know what she was like?

 

You all want to know how it felt being with her?

 

“ _Don’t panic, no not yet. I know I’m the one you want to forget._ ” I sing.

 

They’ve got their lighters in the air, clicking their fingers as I absolutely belt ‘Miss Missing You’, completing the Emo Trinity with some Fall Out Boy.

 

I’m on stage. The adoration feels amazing. The lights. The energy. I feel them all. All the longing and sorrow and rage pours out of me and into them, then back again. Baphomet is looking at Morrigan and mouthing along with me to, ‘ _The person that you’d take a bullet for is behind the trigger_ ’. It feels like a rare truce for them.

 

That feels good, but not as good as this fantasy that’s been cooking in my brain. Me and Luci, or Eleanor, living in a postered up flat in Camden with a staffy. Her working some stuffy government job and hating it, me working some academic job and loving the work but hating the people. Sharing a love seat too small for us, sharing ideas like cigarettes out on the porch.

 

“ _Baby, you were my picket fence. I miss missing you now and then._ ”

 

When I look up, there’s not a dry eye around me. The Morrigan’s greasepaint is smudged. I hand the mic over to Baphomet, feeling, for the first time, a delightful emptiness. The plasma poured out of my head, or just enough to keep it from overflowing.

 

It felt like screaming and crying for hours, only more coherent in the pain. Channeling it into raw energy.

 

I convince myself that I am a god and this is my second coming.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**May 19**

I have dreams of drowning sometimes. My boat is rammed and taking water. Instead of staying inside, I just let myself fall. I am the modern Prometheus. Alive, my ideas don’t hold water, dead I become an idea.

 

Lucifer told me this boat wasn’t fit to sail.

 

I still had two years, Ananke why?

 

Separated, reunited. I wonder if he screamed with his whole body, as I did watching him die.

 

When I wake up from theses dreams I feel hungover. I might be hungover. I don’t really watch what I consume any more.

 

“You were mumbling in your sleep.” Baal says.

 

Waking up to a concerned and naked Baal. Cross that one off the bucket list. His muscles are just as wonderful to touch at as they are to look at.

 

Which is exactly why I kept thinking of pale skin, flared hips, pale pink lips and red eyes. I’d feel like a prick if he didn’t whisper,

 

“Inanna.”

 

When he came.

 

I think he’s trying to be petty with this little dalliance. Still, easily the best sex I’ve ever had with someone other than myself. (And Luci’s little powerful vibe ring.)

 

“You want to talk about it?” He says, spooning the pillow.

 

“Just a weird dream, something about boats and Byronic heroes. I can’t even remember it now.”

 

“Maybe you drowned in a past life?” He says.

 

I light a cigarette, “Nah, I have this dream book. Water represents feelings. Drowning, well that’s being overwhelmed by them.”

 

“I hope you know this isn’t… I still love Inanna.” He says.

 

I sit up, letting the covers fall off.

 

“Don’t worry about it, Baal. It’s not you I’m drowning in. You don’t have to worry about breaking my ‘fangirl’ heart.” I blow out a breath of smoke.

 

Out of the corner of my eye I can see him vogueing in bed, brow wrinkled at me.

 

“She really did a number on you.” He says.

 

“That’s the thing with us ethical sluts, just because you’re a nice person doesn’t mean you’re a good one.”

 

Baal gets up, he doesn’t bother with pants or underwear. His bum is very nice.

 

‘Baal’s not my type. Men with too many muscles.’ Luci stuck her tongue out.

 

A dream come true and I can’t keep my head above water.

 

 

* * *

 

 

**August 5**

The footage is a little grainy, fucking great quality equipment, Beth.

 

Laura keeps worrying the edges of her sweater between her fingers. She’s dodged questions about Inanna and Baal. Some interview it turned out to be.

 

“And what about you and Lucifer?”

 

She hugs her torso, eyes down in a far off look.

 

“Have you ever met someone and… Well, settling down is bullshit. Something our parents are allowed to do, but it’s like paying off your loans or moving out. Doesn’t happen any more. But, sometimes, you meet a person and think… yeah, I would mind getting a dog, going to Ikea, tea together.”

 

Laura pulls out a dog eared pack of Malboros,

 

“Do you mind if I smoke?”

 

Beth does, but can’t really say ‘no’ considering how hard it was to get this interview.

 

Laura takes a deep breath of smoke and closes her eyes.

 

“White picket fences, y’know?”

 

Toni leans over Beth’s shoulder.

 

“Anything worth using here?” He says.

 

She blows out a raspberry and closes the window.

 

“No. Nothing.”

  
  
  



End file.
